Long Time, No Post

Sorry it has been so long since I have posted anything. It has been busy around here to say the least. I am going to do a quick catch up for you.

Our biggest time consumers are trying to sell the house and working through the process of adoption. Both seem to be going well but both are just kind of a waiting game at this point.

Another thing that has been keeping us super busy is the garden. It has been at it's peak the past few weeks. We have been canning lots of pickles, green beans, salsa, and spaghetti sauce. We have also put up about half of our corn so far. We have been eating tons of fresh zucchini, squash, eggplant, and cucumbers. Almost every day we are working on something involving the garden.

We also had some missionary friends staying with us for a few months while they were raising support to move. They moved last week to Germany. It was really fun having them around and sad that they are moving but we know they will do great things. We also have some good friends moving to St Louis next week so that is sad also.

I will try to blog more often if I can. The past couple weeks we have had stuff keeping us busy about every day. I will leave you with a picture of the tomatoes we picked yesterday.

Canceled

I have some very sad news. Margo and I have decided to cancel 4th on the Farm this year. This would have been our 3rd annual. Last year we had 60 people attend and we smoked a whole hog and had big fireworks, along with many other things. We decided to not have it this year because we are trying to save money for an adoption as I mentioned in a previous post, and putting 4th on the Farm on cost us a pretty big chunk of money. We tried to get some corporate sponsors but Wal-Mart, Tyson, and JB Hunt all turned us down. Sorry to all of you who might have been looking forward to it. We will try our best to bring it back next year wherever we are at that time.

FSBO

Margo and I decided to take our house off the market with a realtor for a little while. We are going back to trying to sell it by owner. This enables us to drop the price some. We now have it listed for $200,000 which we think is a really good deal for someone. We still have our website up advertising the house. The site is westforkfarm.blogspot.com. Be sure and tell all your friends, co-workers, etc. Feel free to put it on your facebooks, twitters, blogs, buzz, etc. Spread the word.

Flowers

Our flowers are looking pretty good right now so I thought I would post some pictures. These are in the bed out front. A lot of these I planted when I built that bed a few years ago. They are starting to fill that space better and look nice. There are a lot of daylillies, hostas, butterfly bushes, and many others. They really attract the butterflies. We have been enjoying them a lot.

Lum and Abner

Last weekend, Margo and I and a couple friends went to Mena for the weekend. We enjoy going to Mena to visit anytime but this particular weekend was the Lum and Abner Festival. If you don't know who Lum and Abner are click here. A brief description is they were a comedy radio team in the heyday of radio. Their show was the most popular radio show for several years. Anyway, these two guys were from Mena (and I just read that they both graduated from the UofA). The Lum and Abner festival is Mena's biggest festival during the year. It has been going on for a long time, as far back as I can remember. When I was a kid they had arts and crafts, fishing derby, and 3 on 3 basketball. I am sure they had more but that is what I remember. It has become a lot bigger deal now with lots more events. They had the above mentioned things along with quilt show, firemen challenge, live music, antique car show (they had 150 cars this year), pancake breakfast, bbq cookoff, and more. My two favorite things they have now is the baby crawling contest and the ice melting contest. The ice melting was they had 10 pound blocks of ice and the first one to melt their block using only body heat won. They had four heats and then a championship. Here is a video I took of it.

I just had to share the random awesomness with all of you.

We had lots of fun over the weekend with our friends who went with us and our friends we stayed with. We spent some time in the hot tub and a lot of time playing Beatles Rockband. It was a really good time. All of you who live in Arkansas should go check out Lum and Abner Festival sometime.

Going Personal

We don't share a lot of personal info on this blog. I don't really like to share personal info anytime except with people I am close to. I especially don't think the internet is a good place for all my personal stuff to be floating around, I think that could be dangerous. If we had kids and I was going to post about them, I would make my blog private, but that's just opinion. Ok, enough of that soap box and back to what this posting is really about.

Our immediate family and some of our close friends already know about this but I thought it was time to make it more public. Margo and I have some medical issues that make us not be able to conceive a child on our own. This is something we have been dealing with for a few years and no medical type treatment has been able to change it so far. There is still a very slight chance that we could get pregnant but it is a very small chance. So, we made the decision a couple months ago to officially pursue adoption. We are currently working on applications for adoption agencies.

The reason we decided to make this more public is because we would prefer to do an independent adoption (person to person) instead of going through an agency. Agency adoption costs average somewhere between $15,000-$25,000 and independent adoptions are usually 1/4 of that. But independent adoptions are hard to come by. You basically just have to be lucky and find out about someone who is wanting to give their baby for adoption but has not or does not want to use an agency. We feel like the more people we have out there who know we are wanting to adopt, the greater chance that someone might know of or hear about an independent adoption for us. Coming up with the money for an agency adoption will be a challenge. We can do it but it may take a little while and we are going to have to change our lifestyle a little. One thing we are trying to do to save more money towards adoption is selling our house. That way we can move somewhere that is cheaper even if that means not having a farm for a while. But an independent adoption would really be a lot better for us.

This whole process has been really difficult for us. There is a lot of things that we have been through so far but I will not share on here. It will all be worth it though if and when we are able to have a child (naturally or adopted). So, here is what you can do for us. If you hear about someone who is wanting to give their baby up for adoption, please let us know. We really would prefer to adopt a baby for our first adoption but we are open to considering anything situation at this point (especially if it is a large athletic black kid that is going to go pro in football).

We are not writing this to get sympathy from anyone, we just wanted people to know so they could help by letting us know if they hear about a possible adoption for us.

For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:10

We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 2 Corinthians 4:8-11

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11

Finally an update

It seems that I am doing a poor job at blogging on a regular basis. We have been extremely busy the past few weeks. I thought I would give you a quick update on what's new on the farm.

Our kittens are growing like weeds. They have left the barn and are now residing under the shop. They are eating solid food and playing like crazy. And they are really friendly. If you want one, you better claim it soon before they are gone.

I bought some new sheep last week. We did not really need more sheep (since I had just bought two a few weeks ago) but it was such a good deal that I could not pass them up. I bought six total, 2 boys and 4 girls. They are all mostly katahdin except for one and I am not sure what it is. I will sell the boys pretty soon because I do not need them and they were not castrated so I can't keep them around and eat them. I am really enjoying having the sheep around though, especially since they are pretty friendly.

The garden is growing like crazy. The asparagus is done producing but we are getting tons of sugar snap peas. And we got our first zucchini and yellow squash today so that was pretty exciting. We should have green beans soon also. I still need to make a post soon about a new gardening method I am trying.

That is all of the update that I have for now. I have another post in mind that I will put up tomorrow so stay tuned.

New Animals

The past few weeks, I have been getting rid of some of my animals. Every year, I adjust my herd a little. This year so far I have gotten rid of a few of my goats and my all of my ewe sheep. I had not planned on buying any to replace them anytime soon because as you know, we are trying to sell our house. I am not sure how many animals we will be able to take with us. My plan did not last very long because I came across some new goats and sheep that I could not pass up. I bought two young female goats that were born this year. The main reason I bought them is because they are dairy goats and I got a good deal on them. We have been contemplating doing some dairy goats for a while and now we are set. After they have babies next year, we will be able to do some milking if we want. These two are half Nubian, one quarter Alpine, and one quarter Oberhasli. We got these two in Huntsville and on the farm where we bought them they also had Katahdin sheep which is one of the kinds of sheep we wanted to replace the ones we got rid of. The ones we got rid of were Barbados and were pretty wild. Katahdin are naturally more calm. Our ram is Katahdin and we really like him. Anyway, we were able to buy a couple of ewe lambs from the same place we got the goats. We got a solid white one and a white/red one. With our black ram, we should have some pretty colorful kids. Now I just have to figure out what I will do with them if we move. Here are some pics of the four new ones together.

Kittens

Last week, our kitty Spot had three baby kittens. This is the third time for her to have kittens. The first two times she just had one kitten, which is kind of weird, and neither of them survived. Anyway, these kittens are pretty cute. Their eyes aren't quite opened yet. If any of you want a kitten, let us know.

Here they are

Also, in honor of our new kittens I thought I would put a few of our favorite cat related youtube videos on here.

Hooray for Spring

It seems that spring is upon us and winter is behind us. I really enjoy spring because of all the things that were dead coming alive. I especially like to plant in the garden and watch my veggies grow. So far, I have corn, green beans, sugar snap peas, squash, zucchini, cucumbers, and onions all coming up. And I planted my tomatoes and peppers yesterday. We have also been eating asparagus which is awesome. Every year I like to try something new in the garden. This year I am planting eggplant. I have never really eaten a lot of eggplant but we had some on vacation and it was not too bad so I thought I would plant some and try it out some more. There is another thing I am going to try this year but I will save that for another post. I still have some more stuff to plant, hopefully I will have everything planted in the next week or so.

One thing I wanted to share with all of you is about where I buy my seed and plants (even some of my landscaping plants) and give them a plug because I really like them. I have been buying from them for about the past 5 years. It is a great local place in Farmington called Chicken Holler. They are one of the few places still around that sell bulk seed like old times with the seed in wooden bins and you get whatever you need. They have a huge selections of seed. They also have the biggest selection of veggie plants like herbs, tomatoes, peppers, etc. They have more kinds of tomatoes than I have seen anywhere else (especially heirloom varieties). They also have lots of landscaping plants and berry plants. Another great thing is they grow a lot of the plants in their own greenhouse. They also have very knowledgeable and friendly staff that can answer questions about the plants and growing them. Just the other day when I was there, I learned three new things about growing the veggies I was buying just from talking to them. And one of the greatest things is their prices are cheap, really cheap for some stuff. For instance, a three pack of tomato plants is just $1.09. Just one plant at other places will cost you three times that much. I bought 36 tomato plants, 16 pepper plants, 16 marigolds, 3 eggplants, and an onion set and spent less than $30. You can't beat that anywhere. I hope you guys that do gardening will check them out. They also have all kinds of gardening supplies and (for the winter time) they carry a huge selection of wood stoves and accessories.

While we were gone

Some friends of ours (Israel and Dani) stayed at our place while we were on vacation. Since we were gone for 2 weeks we figured it would be a good idea to have someone look after stuff. We are really appreciative of them staying here and helping us out. But, a few things happened on the farm while we were gone.

First we had two goats have babies (just one each). I think Israel and Dani were a little worried about this and that something bad might happen and they not know what to do. But, the goats did good and had no problems having the babies. Unfortunately they were both boys. We really wanted these babies to be girls so we could keep them but they had other plans. These boys are super cute though.

The first one born was Red Head's baby. She has usually always had two but this year just one. She also always has the biggest babies. His dad is Albi. I am not sure how much he weighed at birth but at one week he weighed 18 pounds. Our others have averaged 7-8 pounds at birth and probably not much more than 10 pounds at a week old. He is a monster and really cute. I wish I could keep him.

A day later our white goat had her baby. This is her second time to have a baby and she still only had one. His dad is Valentino. The baby has markings from his dad, who is half Alpine. The baby has markings like an Alpine goat. I think he is our cutest goat born this year. I really hate to sell him also. It seems like our best ones are always boys.

Also, while we were gone, a snake decide to wander up by the house. Israel texted me to ask if he should kill it. It was a non-poisonous water snake. I told him to go ahead and kill it, I kill most snakes. It was the first time he had killed a snake by himself.

We really appreciate everything they did for us while we were gone. We may have them turned into farmers before too long.

Friday, Saturday, Sunday = Beach

A lot of our time the past few days has been spent on the beach, several different beaches. And we spent lots of time with the Hunters since it was the weekend and they did not have to work.

Friday we went to Waikiki beach and hung out for a while. We also did a lot of walking around the fancy shopping area down there. It was pretty fun. We had sushi for dinner and then went and got mochi ice cream for dessert. It was our first time to have it and it was good.

Saturday we went to Kailua. We rented kayaks and took them out into the ocean. We went to a little island that is a bird sanctuary and walked around. We canoed to another beach down the way that is supposed to be one of the better beaches in Hawaii. It was nice. One thing we did that I have wanted to do my whole life is bury someone in sand. We buried Justin and shaped the sand into a Merman (half mermaid half man). It was fun. We also had some awesome shaved ice yesterday. This is not the normal snow cone kind of ice you get in Northwest Arkansas. It is almost like ice cream it is shaved so fine. I don't like snow cones usually but this was awesome. I think you could make a killing in NWA with this.





Sunday we went to church with Justin and Heather. After church we went to an awesome place for lunch. It was a Dim Sum restaurant. This was Margo and I's first experience with dim sum and we really liked it. It was fun and the food was really good. After lunch, Margo and I went back to the beach for a few hours. One thing we will miss about Hawaii is all the different types of food and restaurants. We have tried lots of things we have never had before while here. We have enjoyed the food very much.



Tomorrow we head home. We have really enjoyed our time here. We did lots of stuff but there is so much more to do and see. But, it will be good to be home.

Hawaii: Wednesday and Thursday

We decided to rest most of the day on Wednesday because we were really worn out from our trip to the big island. But, on Wednesday night we did the most touristy thing to do while in Hawaii. We went to a Luau. We narrowed it down to two possible ones to go to and finally picked the Paradise Cove one. They served alcohol and the other one didn't so we figured it would make it more tolerable with a little liquor in the system. Before the meal and show they had Hawaiian games and craft demonstrations. They had a guy climb a palm tree and throw out a bunch of flower petals on everyone. They had hula lessons. They had a royal court processional with hawaiian dancing and uncovering of the kalua pig. It was very touristy and a little cheesy. The time for food finally came. It was all you can eat and the food was actually pretty good. There was kalua pig, fish, lomi salmon, chicken, rice, salads, poi, dessert, etc. While we were eating at long tables there was a show on the main stage that consisted of lots of hula dancing, music and singing, and fire twirling. We did get to see a pretty good sunset which was nice. I am not sure it was worth the $68 each but I guess if you are in Hawaii you should go to one.







Thursday was a pretty low key day also. We have completed most things on our list of stuff to do. We tried to go to the beach in the morning but it was overcast all morning and kind of chilly so we did not stay too long. Today was the day that we did the USS Arizona Memorial (Pearl Harbor). It has been closed since we have been here because of constructions nearby but it reopened today. They only let so many people a day go to it because it is not that big and they have to ferry people over to it. So, you go early in the morning and get a ticket for an allotted time. We got there at 8am and the next available tour over there was 12:40 so we had to waste some time. There was a bunch of stuff to see around the visitor center. Anyway, we finally made over to the memorial. It was really cool to be there and see it after studying about it in school and hearing about it your whole life. It wasn't amazing or anything but definitely worth seeing.

The Big Island Day 2

We got up early on Tuesday to drive across the island. It isn't very far across, but it is a drive between the two mountains and the roads aren't always the best, so it took almost 2 hours. The west side of the island is very different from the east side. This is where Kona is, which has lots of resorts and tourists. It is hotter and drier on the west side too.

We started off by driving through Kona coffee country. There is an area about a mile wide and 20 miles long where the conditions are just right to grow coffee really well. To be "Kona" coffee, it must be a specific type of coffee tree and be grown in this small area. We stopped in at a few different coffee farms for samples. We did a tour at Greenwell Farms, which is one of the biggest producers and processors of Kona coffee. It was really interesting to learn about how coffee is grown and processed.




We then drove to Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau National Park. This is a historical sacred site and was a place of refuge for warriors. We then drove back to Kona and had lunch. We drove around town and looked at some shops before heading back to the other side of the island.



On our way back we drove a different way, through the northern side of the island. It was interesting to drive through all the different climates and topographies. For miles and miles there were just lava fields in all directions. As we got further north and east is started getting more lush and green. There was an area that was really green and hilly, not any tropical vegetation, lots of cows and sheep grazing, it almost seemed like Arkansas. We drove down the east coast along the ocean. For part of the way we went along an old highway on a scenic drive. This area was like a rainforest, very green with lots of big trees and plants. We stopped at the Tropical Botanical Garden. It was very cool. Lots of really pretty plants, including some really nice orchids. The Garden was on the coast, so there were some good views and pretty waterfalls. After leaving the Garden we went to a little restaurant that makes smoothies from fruit they grow on their farm. So we got a tropical fruit smoothie and some homemade Kona coffee ice cream, they were both really good.





We got back to Hilo with some time to spare before our flight, so we drove around town for a while. We watched paddleboarders and surfers and walked around some shops. We really liked Hilo, it was a cool town. We got back to Justin and Heather's about 9 pm after a long, but very fun, two days. There are more pictures on Picasa.

The Big Island Day 1

The past two days we were on the Big Island, it is about a 30 minute flight from Honolulu. It is the biggest island and is twice the size of Delaware. There are 13 different type of climates in the world and the Big Island has 11 of them. If you don't like the weather you can just drive a few miles and it will change. Another crazy thing is that there are old lava fields all over the island. It is like driving in a desert except it is lava everywhere instead of sand. We really liked this island, if we were going to move to Hawaii we would live there.

The first thing we did upon arrival at 6:45 am was go to Volcanoes National Park. This is what I (Josh) have been most looking forward to. We got there so early that we were the first ones to the visitor center and the only ones there. We did several things at the park. Unfortunately there is not place that you can see active lava right now so that was a little disappointing. We went and saw the active volcano Kilauea. You can't get real close but it was pretty cool to see. We also saw lots of steams vents while driving around coming up through cracks in the ground. We then went and did a 4 1/2 mile hike around the top and through the Kilauea Iki crater. This is the crater from the 1959 eruption of the volcano. The hike around the crater rim was very jungle like. Then we went down the crater and hiked through the lava lake bed. It was really cool to see all of the different lava formations, some of it was smooth, some was really craggly, some looked like asphalt, there were different colors of lava. From the crater rim the lava bed looks smooth, we were surprised that it was very rough and uneven. There were lots of big cracks and steam vents throughout the lava bed. They say the lava is still cooling and you can feel heat from the lava that is still hot a couple of hundred feet below the surface. It was really awesome to hike through. Also on this hike was the Thurston Lava tube where the lava cools on the outside and hot lava continues to flow through the inside and it makes a tunnel. After the hike we drove down a long road that went through the lava fields and had views of the ocean. The road ended where lava flowed over the road several years ago.





This is us during the long hike in the middle of the crater.


lava tube


lava field leading to ocean




After we left the park we drove to a black sand beach. It is black because the sand is made from lava. It was cool to see but was rough on our feet.



Next, we drove to Lava Tree State Park. This is where lava flowed a long time ago and cooled on some huge trees. The lava burned up the trees on the inside but the cooled lava stayed standing up like a tree trunk.



We then went to Akaka Falls which is a ginormous waterfall. It was really beautiful.



It was a really long day which included like 7 miles of of hiking. We finished the day by eating at an awesome Japanese restaurant. It was some of the best food we have had. It was mostly local looking people there, I think there may have been one other white american in there besides us. They did not even have silverware, just chopsticks. It was really, really good.

There are tons more pictures on our Picasa site. Day 2 of the Big Island coming soon.

Sunday

Today we spent the day on the world famous North Shore. This is a really cool area on the north side of Oahu that is considered one of the best places in the world for surfing. When we first got up there we came across a little farmers market that we stopped at that was cool. Next, we went to a bunch of cool little shops with souvenirs and hawaiian themed decor and art. For lunch we went to Giovanni's Shrimp Truck. There are several of these set up along the road and this is supposed to be the best. You just walk up and order and they have some tables set up around it. We had some awesome garlic shrimp. It is peel and eat and super messy. Next, we went to the beach for a while. We went to where there was a beach with lots of surfers. The waves aren't as good this time of year but they are still able to surf. It was really fun to watch the big waves and surfers. After we left that beach we went to another one down the road where the sea turtles beach. You never know if they are going to be on the beach or not but we got lucky. There was one up on the shore sunning. It was really fun to see it. There were some swimming in the water near the beach also. After a little while it scooted back into the water and was gone. I got some videos of it but I will have to wait until I get back home to put those up on the blog. On the way back home, we stopped by the Dole Plantation. It is mostly a tourist trap but we had some pretty good pineapple ice cream there.







The turtle had a transponder on it so they can track it.


That is Margo and I standing on the rock.


Tomorrow we fly to the Big Island for a couple days. We are mainly going there to go to Volcanoes National Park but we have several other things to see there as well. We will not be able to blog until we get back.

Finally the Beach

Several people have been surprised that we had not gone to the beach yet on our trip. Well, we made it there Saturday but not before doing some other stuff. The really good thing about today was that we got to spend the whole day with Justin and Heather since it is Saturday.

First thing this morning we went to a souvenir flea market thing. Around Aloha Stadium a few days a week, they have a ton of vendors there selling really cheap Hawaii souvenirs. We were told this was the place to go to get them. It was your typical shirts, magnets, hats, necklaces, hawaiian souvenirs. We just bought a couple things including a dormant Plumeria that we can plant when we get home. We may go back another day to get some more souvenirs.

Next we went to the local farmers market. This is something we try to do on all of our trips wherever we go. it was a really good market and had tons of local stuff including lots of good flowers and fruit. We bought a lot of fresh fruit including mangoes, papayas, pineapple, oranges, and avocados. One specialty thing they had there that we had heard was awesome was fresh made ginger ale from local ginger. It was awesome.

After lunch, we went hiking at Manoa Falls State Park. It was a rain forest trail that led to a waterfall. I (Josh) had been really looking forward to seeing some rain forest areas up close so I really enjoyed this.




After the hike, we headed to the BEACH. We went to a beach east of Honolulu away from the beaches packed with tourists. It was a really great. When I think of amazing beaches that you would see featured on the travel channel or something, this beach is what pops in my head. It was beautiful. The sand was good, water was a great color, cool trees along the beach, small islands in the distance, and big volcanic mountains in the background. We stayed there for a few hours and had a really good time.






After we got home we picked up some to-go Korean Barbecue and ate at home and watched a good movie (Zombieland).

It was a good day. Click here for more pics.